“What’d you draw me?” I flipped open the book, thumbing past pages of his distinctive scrawls. I found the new image immediately – a sultry snake charmer holding a three-headed snake that coiled lewdly around her body. “That’s so wicked. I’d have that as a tattoo.”
“Yeah?” Dante leaned in, his eyes sparkling. “I could do it for you, if you want. Your first and my first.”
My heart skipped at his words, but of course, I was thinking of a different kind of first. “I don’t know. Drawing sketches on paper is one thing, but I don’t trust you with a needle.”
“I’ve been practicing,” he protested, his nostrils flaring. Dante dreamed of being a tattoo artist ever since he got his first ink at age eleven. His thick arms were already covered in tats, and he’d recently scored an after-school and weekend job cleaning up at a tattoo parlor. The guy who owned the place said Dante could start a full apprenticeship at the end of the school year, so Dante wasn’t even planning to return to school to finish senior year. He was leaving me alone, but it was for a good cause, so I couldn’t blame him. But that didn’t mean I wanted to be his guinea pig. He’d be dying to get his hands on my virgin, ink-free skin for years.
I wished there was another reason he wanted my virgin body, but every time I thought we might get close, or felt a spark light up between us, he’d pull away or make a joke and the moment would pass. He was giving me serious blue bean syndrome.
“You’ve been practicing on oranges,” I shot back, stabbing at my lumpy macaroni and cheese with more force than I’d intended. “Not the same thing. Sorry man, you know I love you, but I don’t want your first wobbly tattoo permanently etched on my skin.”
We were sitting on the steps outside the cafeteria. It was bitter cold, and we had to balance our trays on our knees, but it was easier than choosing a table inside. Kids at our school tended to stick to their own kind – Puerto Ricans in one corner, blacks in another, Dominicans in the middle, skinheads at the back, Irish mob smoking behind the school. Wherever Dante and I sat, one of us was the outcast. So we’d both be outcasts together.
Two white cheerleaders walked past, one sporting a leather jacket covered in gang patches. “Coon lover,” she hissed at me. Dante and I pretended we didn’t hear—
“At least they didn’t hurt you like they hurt Greg.”
Loretta’s voice snapped me out of my memory. She sat on the corner of her bed, her body rigid, ready to leap away if I made any sudden movement.
“If I’d had the choice, I’d rather have my head shoved through a wall,” I said, tracing a line across the page with the tip of my finger.
“They do this to all of us, all the scholarship kids.”
“How many of us are there?”
“Only the four of us – you, me, Greg, Andre. They only offer scholarships for the senior year.”
Four torture victims.
Or three allies in my plot for revenge.
We lapsed into silence. Above my head, the now-familiar noise scuttled through the walls.Scritch-scritch. Scritch-scritch.
“Loretta?”
“Yeah?” She’d sat herself down at the desk, bending over her books. She’d already forgotten about me.
“What’s that sound?”
“Oh.” She paused, her pen dancing in midair. We both listened to the scritch-scritch-scritch move across the ceiling and down the wall beside her bed. “I don’t know. Rats, I guess? Or maybe old ducting? I hear it most nights. I don’t really think about it that much.”
How can you not think about it?But then I remember Ayaz’s cruel smile and Trey’s glittering eyes and Quinn’s belly laugh. There was so much more at this school that would hurt me than a few rats in the walls. Maybe Loretta had the right idea. Keep her head down, work to keep her grades up, and let the name of Derleth Academy on her transcript open doors for her in the future.
Loretta buried her face in her books. I lay back on my bed and held Dante’s drawings to my chest, over my broken heart.
Chapter Six
Buzzzz. Buzzzzzzzzz.
My eyes flew open, my whole body rigid with fright.What’s that?My mind immediately pictured monstrous flying beetles breaking through the walls and dive-bombing my head. I threw my hands up to protect my face.
Loretta groaned. Her bedsprings creaked as she rolled over, picked up the old-school clock on the nightstand, and turned off the alarm. I lowered my arms, sucking in a few deep breaths to calm myself.Of course. It’s just the alarm. I forgot we had to have that stupid clock because we’re not allowed phones at this ridiculous school.
I rubbed my eyes. The room slowly came into focus. The faint square of grey light from our single high window illuminated a patch on the floor. The basic furniture – the bed, a single nightstand, the desk and hard wooden chairs, the old-fashioned wardrobe with a mirror in the door – stretched in long shadows up the walls.
I’d barely slept. All night, the scratching at the walls grew louder and louder until it pounded against my skull. It moved around the room – starting low down beside the door, scritching along past the desk, across the ceiling, and down beside my bed. My imagination flared, thinking back to all the horror films Dante and I had watched where starving rats chewed through wood in order to consume a human whole.
The last time I’d looked at that ancient alarm clock, it read 3:16AM. The weariness in my body must’ve overwhelmed my imagination and allowed me a few hours sleep. As I sat up, a pounding headache flared at my temple.
